We use the terms junior consultants to loosely refer to anyone at the engagement manager level and below: senior associates, associates, consultants and analysts. Our history of working with 279 clients indicates that the best results occur when networking directly with partners. There is no dispute on this point given the difference in our client base between those who networked with partners and those who did not. In this podcast we explain why it is better to network with partners and the inadvertent reasons why junior consultants will be less helpful.

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4 responses to Networking with More Junior Consultants

Bhupender, feel free to write to me. I am, however, extremely busy at the moment so if there is a small delay please note that is entirely due to my overall schedule. My advice is to focus on getting real-time feedback. You cannot plan a networking strategy in advance and simply execute it unless you already have all the skills. If you do not have it, someone needs to guide you through that very slowly by observing what you are doing and providing guidance. Michael

Thanks Michael, I got the sense that I am limiting things. While ago, I just happened to watch the other networking podcast where you given wonderful example of “Henry”. This is all about the absolute personal picture to get things going. Sometimes I get so much delve in other parts of preparation that I forget it is equally important to have someone notice me first.

You briefly touched upon the background part. May be I write to you about this in detail on a personal note. The only limitation to learning is to find right people to learn from.

I think reviewing your LinkedIn profile is an entirely fair way of doing things. They need to know if you at least have the basic profile to be a possible fit for the fit.

I am not sure though how you make the leap of logic that only Harvard, Stanford and Wharton graduates get into these firms. The majority of hires do not come from these schools.

You need to get it out of your head that they only speak to the best of the Ivy Leagues. They speak to the best people, period, provided you can demonstrate you are good, via your email, tone, mannerism, grades, profile etc.

There could be so many reasons why they did not want to speak to you. Maybe your LinkedIn profile is poorly written? Maybe your email was poorly worded? 5 is hardly a big sample and maybe these people were just busy or did not even see your email? Maybe your GPA is low? Maybe you show no evidence of leadership?

It is for the top 10% but you define that only on hard criteria.

Look at it this way, why would a firm want to put a young person in front of a client when that young person lacks confidence?

I do not know your background, but it is best not to jump to conclusions about these things.

Michael, I like this podcast for two reasons 1) Whom to talk to 2) Underlying reasons to select specific people. At the same time, I had tens of questions cropped up in my mind. You said that other people do look at the profile before they feel to network with someone. My question, Is that a fair filtering criteria when considering networking requests. Can only Harvard, Stanford or Wharton folks make to the MBB ? or A person GPA under 3.8 is not worth talking to?. I had absolutely 100% failure rate at recent networking attempt with 5 BCG folks ranging from consultant to principal.

Now, I am into more of introspecting stage. Was there anything wrong with my networking approach or do they feel not worth talking to me because I am not a ivy league cream. If the latter is true then I might face this problem in every networking try. I know competition is very stiff and people do whatever they can do distinguish themselves but is that also true the field is only for the top 10-15%. I’m yet to find answer.